If you’re an American biathlon fan then you know the statistic. We hear it every four years: Biathlon is the only Winter Olympics event that the United States has never won a medal in. In some ways it’s remarkable that a nation with over 330 million citizens has never won a single biathlon medal. And yet…it’s also not surprising at all.
Biathlon normally gets basically no attention. With the demise of the Olympic channel, and even Peacock no longer carrying biathlon, the sport is relegated to streaming on the IBU website. For diehard fans this is great. However it makes growing the sport more and more difficult. During those fleeting years when the World Cup was on the Olympic channel I actually had a handful of friends who finally watched it and actually really enjoyed it. But not being as in love with it as me, they’ve since stopped following. It’s just another barrier to entry into this wonderful world.
But wait…things might be changing. There is a young man named Campbell Wright who almost single handedly seems to be breaking through. The Kiwi American is not just a rising star on the tracks, he’s also a personality to behold. He’s one of the most loose biathletes we’ve ever seen making him a fantastic interview and magnetic for fans. Add to that he’s having success rarely seen by American biathletes, especially at his age, and suddenly there he is showing up on NBC sports and shown on national news.
With a young group of athletes coming along it really feels like biathlon is ready to enter a new level of attention in the United States.
Men – We’ve all been in love with Campbell Wright ever since we first saw him in that Kiwi kit. Last season, his second competing in the Stars and Stripes, he made a breakthrough in a HUGE way. But let’s not let him overshadow the rest of the squad. Maxime Germain had some big time moments as well. The relay team started off the season with two top 6 finishes as well. This is definitely a team on the rise.
Head Coach: Armin Auchentaller
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 12th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 6th, 6th, 16th, 9th, 9th
Quota: 5 Athletes to Start
World Cup – The team will absolutely be led by the dynamic and irascible Campbell Wright. While the team started seven men on the World Cup roster last season it’s likely that there won’t be a huge amount of turnover on this team. Here are the four men who will start the season on the World Cup and I imagine that they will take the majority of the starts on the World Cup this season:
– Campbell Wright
– Maxime Germain
– Paul Schommer
– Sean Doherty
Campbell Wright (23)
Campbell Wright (USA), – IBU World Championships Biathlon, pursuit men, Lenzerheide (SUI). http://www.biathlonworld.com© Thibaut/IBU.
There are few athletes in biathlon that are as exciting and entertaining as Campbell Wright. That’s not to say he’s the best or even one of the best. But it is just flat out fun to watch him compete. And on top of that he’s quite good. At just 22 years old he was doing things last season that nobody has ever accomplished in American biathlon. 15th in the Overall he brought home nine top 10’s, four top 5’s and two podiums. Crucially those podiums came in the Sprint and the Pursuit in the Leznerheide World Championships. It was the first time an American had ever won two solo medals in a single World Championships. He tied Susan Dunklee for most solo World Championship medals in an entire career. It is not a stretch to say that this was already one of the best seasons by an American in biathlon history. And it was almost even better. He actually had a chance for the bronze the the Mass Start but he couldn’t hold off a hard charging and determine Johannes Thingnes Boe on the final lap and had to “settle” for 4th. What a season!
There is magical picture of Campbell Wright’s face the moment he saw his last target go down in the Pursuit which more or less locked up his second silver medal in two races. I mean look at that picture! It was so awesome to see his pure joy. And that’s the way he was all season long. That’s the way he’s been in his entire career. No amount of success seems to take it away from him.
One of the coolest moments for me personally actually happened in Oslo at the famed Holmenkollen stadium. In a stadium packed in to see the conclusion of the epic season long battle between Franziska Preuss and Lou Jeanmonnot, and to bid a teary and joyous farewell to the Boe brothers, one of the loudest cheers of the entire weekend was for Campbell Wright. An American biathlete was so warmly received. As someone who has grown up a biathlon fan in a nation where biathlon is forgotten, seeing one of our own so celebrated in one of the most significant sites in biathlon was really a stunning moment.
Okay that’s enough waxing poetic about Campbell. What did he do last year to actually be so successful? Well he got better. Simple enough! He was significantly faster moving from 1.2% faster than median to 2.3% faster than median. Crucially he moved from 4.1% slower than the median top 10 to just 2.1% slower than the median top 10. His average course time rank improved from 29th to 18th. Meanwhile he hit a career best 86% including 87% prone and 85% standing. This was the fourth consecutive season of improved shooting accuracy. He also had the fastest shooting of his career getting off his shots in an average of 26.5 seconds, his first time inside the top 30 of shooting time on the World Cup.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2021-2022 | 81.1 | 76.8 | 79 | 29.8 |
| 2022-2023 | 86.7 | 75.2 | 80.9 | 27.3 |
| 2023-2024 | 83.6 | 85 | 84.3 | 28.7 |
| 2024-2025 | 87 | 85 | 86 | 26.5 |
Can we expect another significant leap from Campbell Wright this season? Maybe not to the same degree that he just had. That would be expecting a ton. But I think it’s more than fair to say that at age 23 we have yet to see nearly the best out of Campbell Wright yet. There is absolutely a top 10 Overall biathlete in there. He deserves to be included along with Eric Perrot, Tommaso Giacomel, Nik Hartweg, and Isak Frey as the future leaders of men’s biathlon.
Maxime Germain (24)
If it weren’t for Campbell Wright’s sublime performances last season especially in Lenzerheide it would have been Maxime Germain who we would have been pointing to as a rising leader for the Stars and Stripes. Another dual nationality athletes, the perfect metaphor for the American melting pot, Germain raced his first full season on the World Cup in the 2024-2025 campaign. The year prior he split time between the IBU Cup and the World Cup almost perfectly evenly. In his IBU Cup racing he secured two top 10’s and four top 20’s in seven racing, clearly indicating his potential. Last season on the World Cup he scored points in seven races and had six finishes in the top 30 and two finishes in the top 20. That included a spectacular Sprint in the Lenzerheide Worlds where he set a new career best of 12th, finishing just 3.7 seconds off the top 10.
Just like Campbell Wright, the young Franco-American showed progress pretty much everywhere. His speed jumped from less than average to nearly average. He went from 2.0% slower than median up to just about median exactly. That included an average course time rank improving from 61st to 40th. His World Cup hit rate rose up significantly to 82.2%, the best of his World Cup career, but just about in line with what he did in his successful 2023-2024 IBU Cup run. However his average shooting time improved from 29.3 to a brisk 26.1 seconds. That marked an improvement from 60th fastest to 26th fastest. That’s no joke!
What’s next for Maxime Germain? At just 24 we certainly have not seen the best he has to offer. The skiing can absolutely continue to improve. There is no reason to believe that we won’t see him get a little faster this season. For sure we should be seeing him running faster than median, and maybe by more than just a little bit. What I’m most curious about is will his shooting take a step forward. In the last two seasons he’s hit around 82-83%. Now it’s time for him to move towards the mid 80’s. I’m feeling very optimistic about this upcoming season for Germain.
Paul Schommer (33)
A year ago as we wrote this we didn’t really know what to expect from Paul Schommer. He hadn’t had a healthy season since the last Olympic season. In 22-23 he started late and ended early due to a knee injury. That same injury kept him from racing at all in the 23-24 season. He came back to the IBU Cup in the 2nd trimester of last season and we really had no idea what to expect. Holy cow what a surprise!
As Paul Schommer returned he didn’t waste any time in getting our attention. In his second race back he finished 14th in one of the Sprints in Arber. The following weekend he did even better finishing 7th in a Sprint in Brezno-Osrblie. After a solid week at the European Championships he went to Ridnaun-Val Ridanna and was spectacular with back to back third place finishes in the Sprint and Pursuit. He was one of only five non-Norwegians to have multiple podiums on the IBU Cup last season. That was good enough to carry him back to the World Cup where he ran three races at the World Championship with a best finish of 24th in the Individual. That as a spectacular return for Paul Schommer, definitely smashing expectations.
Looking at his statistics its like he never missed a beat. His average course time rank was 40th as he skied 0.6% faster than median. Those were both career bests and it was the first time he ran faster than median on the World Cup. He hit 78.35% of his shots, a little down from the 84.4% and 83.2% he hit in his last two World Cup seasons before taking the time off for the injury. On the IBU Cup he actually his 81.3% a little closer to his career average.
It’s reasonable that with another solid summer of training we should expect to see more of the same for Paul Schommer. He probably will be skiing right around the median, but a little better than median would be great. He probably will be hitting in the low 80’s. Over the course of a full season he likely will somewhere between 6-10 top 40’s to collect points. He could find himself somewhere around the top 50 in the Overall which would be a very solid season. Maybe the biggest thing he could do for the team though, would be a solid and consistent member of the relay.
Sean Doherty (30)
While the young guys have been coming up, and Paul Schommer has been out with his knee troubles, Sean Doherty has just been plugging away racing 36 times over the last three seasons. Actually last year was a bit of an aberation as he only lined up at the start 11 times on the World Cup his fewest in a season on the top level since the 2014-2015 season. After the World Championships, in order to give Paul Schommer some time on the World Cup, Sean Doherty dipped down to the IBU Cup for the last two weekends in Otepaa. It really came down to him and Sean Brown and Jake Brown was just racing a little stronger than Doherty at that moment.
Not coincidentally for Sean Doherty, it was his least successful World Cup campaign in a decade. He had just a single top 40 as he placed 26th in the Sprint in Kontiolahti. After that he finished in the 40’s eight times in nine races. It had to be incredibly frustrating and agonizing to be that close to points so many times. It wasn’t a bad season by any means, he just left a lot of chances for higher finishes and points on the table. When he got to the IBU Cup he finished out the season strong with finishes of 18, 15, 17, 26, and 16 in the final five races of his season.
It wasn’t a major slide in performance for Doherty. In fact it looked a whole lot like most of the rest of his career. His average finish was 47th. Not altegether different from the 43rd, 44th, 46th, and 45th he had in four of the five previous seasons. His average course time rank did slip from 38th down to 43rd as he skied 0.2% back of median. He had been just slightly faster than median as recently as two seasons ago. Meanwhile his hit rate of 80.6% was the 6th best of his career but roughly in line with where he normally is in the upper 70s and low 80’s.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 82.2 | 89.2 | 85.7 | 28.3 |
| 2019-2020 | 84.8 | 79.1 | 81.9 | 28 |
| 2020-2021 | 81.4 | 82.9 | 82.1 | 27.9 |
| 2021-2022 | 81.3 | 72.5 | 76.9 | 30.1 |
| 2022-2023 | 88.5 | 77 | 82.7 | 27.8 |
| 2023-2024 | 80.8 | 74.1 | 77.5 | 32.7 |
| 2024-2025 | 81.2 | 80 | 80.6 | 28.9 |
There is a more than good chance that Sean Doherty bounces back to his career norms next season. He wasn’t far off at all. As is the case with biathlon, just a few more targets going down and this season looks entirely different for Doherty. Seriously just 2-3 total targets down scattered over 2-3 races and those mid 40’s finishes become much better. I just chose the Antholz Sprint at random for example. He finished 47th with 2 misses. If that’s a 9/10 he finishes between 25th and 30th. Do that in one other race and it’s looks like a completely different season for Doherty.
The difference now is that old reliable Doherty finds himself fighting for his roster spot. Wright and Germain are locked in coming out of camp. And if they look like they did last season, and they very well might be better as they are on the steep part of the growth curve, they will be on the World Cup all season. That leaves two spots. Schommer looks very good right now for the 3rd spots so he’s going to be the favorite right now for that spot. Then you have like Doherty, Jake Brown, Vaclav Cervenka, and Vincent Bonacci battling for the last spot. His spot is no longer a lock. Hopefully that helps boost his performance this season!
IBU Cup and Development roster – It’s my thought that those five men will take the majority of the starts. There are some young American men who are showing some good performances. If they keep it up there is a chance they can fight for the World Cup. Even still I think they’ll be making at least a little noise on the IBU Cup. Here is the IBU Cup roster to start the season:
– Jake Brown
– Vaclav Cervenka
– Vincent Bonacci
– Bjorn Westervelt
Jake Brown (33)
How is Jake Brown possibly 33 years old. I frankly refuse to believe it. For the most part for the last five seasons Brown has been just like Sean Doherty, the steady presence for Team USA. He hasn’t been sensational, but he’s been steadily putting up solid mid-tier World Cup seasons year in and year out. Now the cavalry has arrived in the form of Wright and Germain, and Brown finds himself, like Doherty, grappling for a World Cup spot.
In the 2024-2025 season Jake Brown ran 11 World Cup races. Outside of the eight races he ran in the 22-23 season it is his fewest races he completed since the 2019-2020 campaign. In those 11 races, though, he had four top 30’s which was hit 3rd most of his career. It was the best top 30 rate of his career. Interestingly, he had only four top 40’s. So every single top 40 he had was ALSO a top 30.
It was like the inverse of Sean Doherty. Brown maxed out the potential of every one of his good races. Sean Doherty did not. As we always know the gap between good and not as good in biathlon is so very narrow.
The improvement for Brown was primarily the result of his shooting. Brown remained a solid skier ranking in the top 40 of overall skiing for the fifth consecutive season. He ran 1.2% faster than median which was the fourth time in five seasons he was 1% or more ahead of median. His shooting was the big improvement. He hit 83.5% last season including 85.9% prone. Both of those were big personal bests. For the previously three seasons he was stuck around 78-79% and then this step forward. He moved up from 77th and 76th to 42nd in terms of best overall hit rate on the World Cup. Also, after spending most of his career with an average shooting speed in the 32-33 second range, Brown got it to 28.9 seconds last season.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2019-2020 | 76.7 | 66.7 | 71.7 | 36.8 |
| 2020-2021 | 72.7 | 76.4 | 74.6 | 33.6 |
| 2021-2022 | 80 | 72 | 76 | 33.7 |
| 2021-2022 | 80.7 | 77.2 | 79 | 32.5 |
| 2022-2023 | 70 | 88.3 | 79.2 | 28.5 |
| 2023-2024 | 82 | 74 | 78 | 32.7 |
| 2024-2025 | 85.9 | 81.2 | 83.5 | 28.9 |
Jake Brown may be 33 years old, on the opposite side of his career from Wright and Germain, but he still is showing signs of improvement. Was last season a one time improvement in shooting? If so then he likely is going to be the odd man out of the top 5 men fighting for World Cup spots. If it isn’t a fluke, though, his ski speed may make the difference in staying on the World Cup. It might make the difference in making the relay squad which play a big role in the decision making for this role.
Vaclav Cervenka (26)
After racing 12 times on the World Cup during the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons Vaclav Cervenka has been one of the odd men out losing World Cup starts due to the increased intra-team competition with the ascendency of Wright and Germain. As a result he’s run two consecutive seasons with the vast majority of his races on the same level for the first time ever. There’s been a lot of moving around for many seasons before that.
Cervenka was never a highly heralded Juniors athlete. He did have a podium and two top 10’s but he was never anybody people were highly touting as he was coming up. He was a decent skier and shot consistently in the 70’s. Honestly one the best parts was simply the experience was that he was an American who actually chose biathlon early enough that he was able to get experience while young.
As mentioned above over the last two seasons he’s been running consistently on the IBU Cup. His skiing has been pretty steady for most of the last four seasons running slightly faster than median and his average course time ranks have been consistently in the low 40’s. He also saw his hit rate up a little bit to 77.9%. He’s hit a little better than that at times but not consistently. Would be fantastic to see him continue to build off of that and keep advancing.
I think Cervenka looked pretty good in the trials races last month. He’s still not as fast as some of the other guys on the team, but he was hitting his shots at a better rate. It was just one weekend of racing, and it was in October and on roller skies, but he looked pretty solid. With the abovementioned guys it may be difficult for Cervenka to get consistent World Cup run. While his skiing doesn’t quite look to be on their level, maybe he’s a little faster than he was last season. His pathway to more World Cup racing is going to be through his rifle. He’ll need to consistently hit in the low 80’s, and preferably higher. Hopefully this season see’s him take another step in that route. My goals for him are going to be closer to 1% faster than median on the IBU Cup, with an average course time rank in the 30’s, along with a hit rate around 80% or better. If he does those two things I don’t care exactly what the results are because they’ll take care of themselves.
Vincent Bonnaci (25)
Vincent Bonacci enters the 2025-2026 season coming off of a season in which he raced just eight times. It was his fewest IBU races since the 2020-2021 season when he was splitting time between the Juniors and IBU Cup. Last season he raced the first trimester on the IBU Cup, followed by the racing Oberhof, and then one race at the European Championship. He did finish 19th in the first race of the season, but that was his only finish higher than 37th on the year.
He was coming off of a season with the best racing in his career in 2023-2024 when he had two top 10’s including 6th in the Individual at the European Championship. That season he also had the three best finishes of his World Cup career with three top 50’s as well. So for Bonacci the 24-25 season was a lot about growth.
From a statistical perspective it was a bit of a mixed picture for Bonacci. For the most part his course time ranks were trending downward from the peak skiing of his career in the 2023-2024 season. He ran slower than median on the IBU Cup for the first tine in three years. However, I wonder if something happened. He started the season with relatively good skiing in the first couple of races before it fell off a bit in his later races. He also had two of the three best course time ranks of his World Cup career.
Also, after the last couple of seasons shooting in the low 80% range, he hit 77.1% on the IBU Cup and 80% in the World Cup races. So a slight drop but not significant.
Boom Boom Bonacci (as his social media goes) hit a bit of a bump in the road last season. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be headed that way forever. At the trial he seemed to be moving back in a positive direction. Maybe regular World Cup racing will be a little out of reach this season. Let’s just work on moving back in a positive direction this season. Skiing back faster than median on the IBU Cup with a hit rate in the 81-85% range would be a win. That’s going to get him back to 2023-2024 level performance. In the long run it puts him in potential to make a move to the World Cup in the next few seasons.
Bjorn Westervelt (24)
The 2024-2025 season gave Bjorn Westervelt the opportunity to have the most IBU level racing of his career. Likely related to graduating from college which allowed him more time to dedicate to the biathlon racing. Thus far the peak of his career has been 9th place in the 2020 Youth World Sprint as well as an 18th place finish in each of the 2022 and 2023 Junior Worlds.
Last year as he starting racing more frequently he had some new peaks to his career. After rising to the IBU Cup after the holiday break he finished 22nd in the Sprint in Arber, which was already the best IBU Cup finish of his career. He followed that up two races later with a new career best of 19th in the Arber Pursuit. Then two races after that he set a new career best once again with a 17th in the Brezno-Orsblie Sprint. He ended up with seven of the nine best races of his career.
As a Junior Westervelt did his best performance based on his skiing. In the 2022-2023 season, his last as a Junior, he ran 5.6% faster than median with an average course time rank of 10th. While understandably he didn’t quite run that well on the IBU Cup, he still made significant ski growth year over year from 23-24 to 24-25. He moved up from an average course time rank of 63rd to 37th as he moved from 1.9% slower than median up to 0.6% faster than median.
Meanwhile, his shooting, which was always the weaker part of his biathlon, has been coming along as well. He never hit better than 70% on the Juniors level. However the last two seasons he’s jumped up to 75%. That’s a big way that he’s come along!
While certainly under the radar compared to his more heralded teammates there is a reason I’ve always included Westervelt along with Bonacci and Cervenka as possibilities to eventually join Wright and Germain on the World Cup. He has ski talent that hasn’t been fully developed as of yet, and his shooting continues to come along. Hopefully this is the start of a full season on the IBU Cup for Westervelt. My goals for him are skiing around 1-1.5% faster than median and shooting closer to 80%. If he does that, as I’ve said before, the results will take care of themselves. It’s about growth right now.
Eli Nielsen (26)
Although we won’t see Eli Nielsen in the first trimester for sure I’m pretty sure that we will at some point this season. He did qualify for the European training camp in November, and thus a Senior level spot for the first trimester, but he turned it down to stay at home and Bjorn Westervelt came along in his spot.
Nielsen is not a well known name even amongst American biathlon fans so don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize the name. Since he first raced at the 2017 Youth Worlds he has run 32 total races. As a Junior his best finish was 42nd in the 2018 Youth Worlds. Since moving to the Senior levels he raced 12 times on the IBU Cup in the 22-23 season but only nine total races over the two seasons since. His career best IBU Cup finish is a 39th at the 2023 European Championships. Over the last two years he has two top 40’s with one each the last two seasons.
As a Senior level biathlete he has not been a tremendous skier. He’s running consistently at nearly 2% back of median. His shooting is getting staying solid though. The last two seasons she hit 74% and 86%. Obviously small sample sizes but it comes out to right around 80%.
It likely won’t be a big run for Nielsen but I still think he’ll be good enough to grab a few starts likely later this season. Hopefully he can keep shooting in the 80’s and any better skiing. Not likely to be on the same developmental curve of even Westervelt but would be fun to see him get into the top 40’s.
Luke Brown (30)
Luke Brown is not totally unique in American biathlon in that he did not really race on the Junior Cup. Well actually he did’t race at all as a Junior. He didn’t start competing in biathlon until he graduated from college. After he finished 15th at cross country skiing nationals he was recruited directly into biathlon. Shortly afterward he ran the first race of his IBU Cup career was at the 2020 European Championships and he’s been racing on the IBU Cup ever since. Over the last four seasons he’s actually been racing as many IBU Cup races as pretty much anybody racing first 14, then 9, then 14, and last year 17 times.
With that consistent racing Brown has been okay. In 22-23 he grabbed four top 40’s and the following season three more, including two top 30’s. Unfortunately last season, even racing a career most 17 times, he only had a season’s best of 44th and just two top 50’s. His average finish has fallen for three consecutive seasons from 45th to 60th to 68th. Th
Unfortunately it’s been a slip in both skiing and shooting. As his average course time rank has fallen from 30th to 62nd he’s gone from just a little faster than median to 2.3% slower than median. Meanwhile his shooting has been sitting in the mid to low 60’s. It’s really not a recipe for good finishes.
I have to say I find the story of Luke Brown inspiring. He’s clearly not been moving towards a successful World Cup career. But even with the struggles, and not advancing towards what I’m sure is his ultimate goal, Brown continues to fight on. There is something wonderful in that story and in his career. It’s fighting on and racing on for the love of the sport.
If Luke Brown is going to have another double digit race season on the IBU Cup he’s going to need to earn his way there at the December trials. It’s going to be a big moment for him. At 30 years old and with such talented youngsters rising up, he’s going to need to get his skiing and shooting improving quickly. Otherwise the rising talent is going to threaten to muscle him out. I for one hope we have not seen the last of Luke Brown.
Wes Campbell (21)
Wes Campbell is definitely the youngest man on this list, and he’s never yet race on the Senior level. It really feels like it’s just a matter of time now though. Campbell, while maybe struggling a little bit with the shooting, has still managed to continue to put up nice results the last few seasons. That includes his first career top 10 last season with the Mass 60 in Jakuszyce, a 14th in the Junior European Championship Sprint, and a 15th in the Jakuszyce Sprint. All three the best of his career. He actually had six of his top seven career finishes. That includes his best Junior Worlds finish of 28th in the Mass 60 in Oestersund.
Over the last three seasons his average finish has moved up from 50th to 20th. While he’s been a similarly good skier each season, with an average course time rank of 17th every year and running around 4-5% faster than median on the Juniors level, it’s been his shooting that’s made the difference. After starting as a bit of a novice in shooting at 46% in the 2020-2021 season, including just 36% prone, he moved up to 61% in 21-22 and 75% last season. That includes 82% prone, a tremendous 46% improvement in prone shooting the last two seasons.
What’s next for Wes Campbell. Well hopefully the shooting continues to come along. Hitting 75.6% last season is already solid. If he can continue move on up he should be closing in or even eclipsing 80% this season. If he can make an advance on that uber talented skiing this season he’ll really be in business. At this point it just seems like a matter of time until he’s in the IBU Cup. Fingers crossed he qualifies out of the December trials (not that I want to see anybody else not qualify I just love Campbell’s potential!). There is big time potential ahead for Wes Campbell. Give him 2-4 more seasons and he may be ready to join Campbell Wright and Maxime Germain as staples on the World Cup.
Thor Sheppard (21)
Thor Sheppard is another (thus far) Juniors only biathlete who will be making the transition to the Senior level this year. The Montanan, who first was introduced to biathlon at just five years old, had his best career race at the 2023 Youth Worlds finishing 20th in the Individual. He otherwise has just one other top 30 on his resume and five total top 40’s.
Sheppard for the most part has been skiing around 2-3% back of median on the Junior Cup with average course time ranks in the 50’s. Shooting definitely still developing but last season was the most accurate of his career hitting 70%.
Thor Sheppard likely needs a bit more seasoning but hopefully he keeps his nose down and keep grinding. Learning from somebody like Luke Brown could really be good for him. More than likely we’ll see him race the national races this season and hopefully make a run at qualifying next season.
Juniors – And finally a few young men who will be competing primarily in the Juniors levels
Elias Soule (19)
-2024-2025 was third season of racing. Has raced 2023, 2024, and 2025 Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 43rd, 12th, and 33rd
– Best moment: 12th in Youth Worlds Sprint which is career best. Prior career best of 22nd was only other top 30.
– Course Time Ranks: 26, 21, 25 (3 best of career)
– Shooting percentage: 70%, 90%, 75%
Eric Anderson (18)
-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced four races + Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 62nd, 64th, and 47th
– Best moment: 47th at Youth Worlds Mass 60
– Avg course time rank: 64th
– Shooting percentage: 72% hitting 64% prone and 80% standing
John Lohuis (18)
-2023-2024 season was 2nd season of racing. Competed in Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 19th, 54th, and 15th (two first career top 40’s…and top 20’s!)
– Best moments: 19th in Youth Worlds Individual and 15th in Youth Worlds Mass 60.
– Avg course time rank: 22 (improved from 80th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 82% hitting 92% prone and 72% standing (In 23-24 hit 83.3% total)
Aidan Sands (17)
-2023-2024 season was 2nd season of racing. Race Junior Worlds after racing 23-24 Youth Worlds
– Junior Worlds: 60th and 63rd
– Best moment: 60th in Youth Worlds Individual
– Course Time Ranks: 80 and 77
– Shooting percentage: 85% and 90%
Tristan Thrasher (17)
-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced two races and Junior European Championships
– Junior European Championships: 55th, 43rd, and 44th
– Best moment: 43rd in Sprint and 44th in Mass 60 at Junior European Championships
– Avg course time rank: 56th
– Shooting percentage: 68.6% while hitting 80% prone and 57.1% standing
Women – The women’s team has been in a bit of flux over the last few years as Susan Dunklee and Clare Egan left the team. Then Joanne Reid stepped away the last two seasons after undergoing some truly disheartening levels of abuse. This has left Deedra Irwin as the lone consistent World Cup presence. There were some fun stories coming through last year, though, including Lucie Anderson’s emergence and Chloe Levins fighting back to the World Cup. This should be a fun squad to follow this year.
Head Coach: Armin Auchentaller
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 19th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 17th, 16th, 20th, 19th, 19th, 15th
Quota: 3 Athletes to Start
World Cup – As noted above Deedra Irwin will once again be the standard bearer for the American squad. She has the best Olympic finish in American history and can look to one up herself this season! Beyond her the team will likely have a decent amount of turnover. Last season we saw eight starters at one point or another for the US women. Likely we’ll be looking at the same again. Here’s the squad that will start the season in Oestersund:
– Chloe Levins
– Deedra Irwin
– Margie Freed
– Lucie Anderson*
*This is only because Joanne Reid has to reaccumulate IBU points to get back to the World Cup. As soon as she does she will be back and Anderson back to IBU Cup
Deedra Irwin (33)
During the last Olympic season Deedra Irwin was the young buck having her first Olympic experience. In a somewhat shocking turn of events the young cheesehead came through with a 7th place finish in the Beijing Olympic Games Individual, putting up not only the best American finish of those Olympics, but the best Olympic finish by an American ever. Since then she’s actually proven herself to be a bit of a big game hunter with two of the best finishes of her career since then coming in World Championships, the Oberhof (20th) and Nove Mesto (11th) Individuals. She’s also added another top 10 to her career when she finished 8th in the Lenzerheide Sprint in the 23-24 season. Overall she’s become a very steady presence for the Americans with Ovearll finishes of 58th, 58th, 38th and 53rd.
Now as she enters the 2025-2026 season, which will peak in intensity at the 2026 Milan-Cortino Olympics, she is the elder leader. She will be rejoined by Joanne Reid who raced in both Peyongchang and Beijing, but with Reid being absent the last two seasons, it’s Deedra Irwin who is the spiritual head of the women’s team now.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2020-2021 | 83.2 | 79.2 | 81.2 | 31.3 |
| 2021-2022 | 91.9 | 78.5 | 85.2 | 32.6 |
| 2022-2023 | 81.3 | 70 | 75.6 | 33.8 |
| 2023-2024 | 86.7 | 83.3 | 85 | 31.6 |
| 2024-2025 | 86.7 | 82.2 | 84.4 | 30.9 |
Since those Olympics in 2022 Irwin’s performance has only continued to improve. The last two seasons have been the fastest of her career. Those were the only two seasons in which she has run faster than median and she had the fastest two average course time ranks of her career of 32nd in 23-24 and 36th in 24-25. That gave her the best overall ski ranks of her career of 36th and 47th. She also had the best hit rates of her career hitting 85% last and 84.4% in those two seasons. And she’s done it while improving her average shooting time every season. Last year was her fastest shooting yet averaging just 30.9 seconds per shoot.
Deedra Irwin has followed a more traditional pathway in the American cycle. She was solely a cross country skier until later in her life. As a result she has a bit a delayed developmental curve. As a result even at age 33 we can still be seeing improvements. Like we have been. Last season was very close to being an another top 40 Overall season. She had eight finishes in the 40’s. In each of those races she was likely one bullet or a few seconds away from adding a few points to her Overall total. She was just 28 total points away from 46th in the Overall which would have easily been her second best Overall season. I’m hoping that we see her racing even a little bit better this season, and aiming for her best season yet! She still has the ability on any given day to shoot clean and find the top 10-15. Hopefully she’s able to do that at least one more time this…and with her big game hunting ability, maybe even in Antholz!
Chloe Levins (27)
I couldn’t be more proud of or more happy for Chloe Levins. After running a full season on the World Cup in the 2022-2023 season Levins failed to make the Senior team out of Fall trials the following season, and the rest of the season did not go quite as well as she might have hoped. Last year she once again did not make the team out of Fall trials as she finished 10th in the combined scoring. She was pretty bummed about that, but she put her head down and went back to work. She kicked butt in the December trials and made her way back to the World Cup. She ended up with three of the best seven finishes of here career with all of them coming at the World Championships including a career best finish of 41st. This season she didn’t mess around at all. Not only did she make the Senior roster she locked up a top 2 spot and trials and an automatic qualifier to the World Cup team for trimester 1.
As primarily as shooter, last year ended up being the best skiing season of her career. She still wasn’t a burner but it was a pretty nice improvement running 3.4% slower than median compared to her prior career best of 5.5% slower than career best in 22-23. Unfortunately she couldn’t quite sync it up with her skiing as she hit just 84.6% compared to normally hitting in the high 80’s.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2022-2023 | 95 | 80 | 87.5 | 31.8 |
| 2023-2024 | 94.6 | 81.8 | 88.2 | 31.8 |
| 2024-2025 | 89.2 | 80 | 84.6 | 30.9 |
Hopefully this season we’ll see a year when she does get both her skiing and shooting lined up. Even if she’s faster still this year compared to last year, which wouldn’t be a surprise considering she just now 27 and entering what should be the best skiing years of her career, she’s still not going to be considered fast. So hitting her targets will continue to be her avenue to success. There is every reason to believe that she can get back to the upper 80’s this season. At the team trials she was certainly accurate with the rifle. If she gets those two together we’ll almost certainly see the first top 40 and first points of her career. My best is she does it more than once too.
Joanne Reid (33)
Joanne Reid is back!!! After last racing for the national team in the 2022-2023 season, Joanne Reid missed the last two seasons for truly devastating reasons. If you don’t know about it I would strongly recommend reading the following article about the sexual harassment she suffered and brought to light. It was truly heartbreaking to hear what she went through and infuriating to read about the response by the team. I will forever in awe and respect of her strength and her bravery in coming out in public about this. While the allegations are devastating, it does seem like the team and federation have taken them seriously and are taking the appropriate steps to clean it up and make sure this does not continue to happen. For that they deserve our respect as well.
When she initially walked away from the team she also was walking away from the sport. It seems like she had no real intention of coming back. But it also sounds like Deedra Irwin stayed her rock, a steady presence in her life. At some point last season she started training again and raced a few races with her club. She put in a full off season of training with the aim of reclaiming her spot. Did she ever! The top point earner at the fall trials she took one of the automatic qualifying positions and will be on the World Cup for sure for the first trimester, and based on her performance presumably much longer.
It’s of course been two full seasons since we saw Joanna Reid race for Team USA. When we previously saw her she was solid without being great at either skiing or shooting. She was always skiing right around median, usually just a little slower. With that speed her average course time rank was usually in the 40’s. She also usually hit in the upper 70’s but on multiple occasions has hit over 80% including 82.2% in the 2022-2023 season and a peak in 2018-2019 of 85%.
What will we see from her this season I have no idea. Likely she’ll look like she did when we last saw her. Faster? Slower? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. She seemed to shoot pretty well at the trials in Soldier Hollow but that was a pretty limited sample size. So let’s hope for the best. That she’s feeling safe, comfortable, and strong enough to be out there again is the real victory. I know we’re all going to be rooting hard for her this season!
Luci Anderson (24)
The 2024-2025 season was the first biathlon season of Luci Anderson’s career. The cross country skiing convert only tried biathlon for the first time as a senior at the University of New Hampshire. After graduation she came back to it and committed to full time biathlon in the summer of 2024. She secured a top 6 spot out of trials and in her first season she was already racing with the Senior team.
Right out of the gate she was pretty darn good. She raced six times on the IBU Cup and had five top 40s including a 21st in Idre Fjall and 25h in Geilo. Immediately after that, after just one World Cup week, she went straight to the Hochfilzen. The rest of the season she raced six more times including the World Championships and the final trimester. At Worlds she finished 56th in the Sprint, 49th in the Pursuit, and 42nd in the Individual. A learning season for sure, but it was better than it looked from the results.
Luci Anderson was already the fastest woman on the US Biathlon team. On the World Cup she skied 2.5% faster than median. Her average course time rank of 26th was quite respectable as well. Her average course time rank on the IBU Cup was 7th! For a new convert to biathlon it’s all about the shooting. She hit just better than 63% on her combined IBU Cup and World Cup racing. Also not surprisingly her average shooting time was just 41.3 seconds. Plenty of room to improve there too!
Already at the fall trials Anderson was looking better. She was thisclose to an automatic qualifier finishing just barely back of Chloe Anderson for the 2nd spot. That would have put her on the World Cup automatically for the first trimester. If Luci Anderson can maintain her skiing and bring along her shooting in the next few seasons she’s going to bring an element to this US Biathlon program that they currently just don’t have. It’s probably too early to expect a massive improvement this season but there is every reason to expect her to qualify for a few Pursuits this season. I’m pretty excited to see what she can bring!
Margie Freed (27)
Yet another cross skier convert to biathlon is Margie Freed. After starting her career on the World Cup, and qualifying for FIS World Cup races, she made the difficult transition over to biathlon in the 2022-2023 season. She went to the IBU Cup and in racing the final trimester of that season she scored a top 20 along with six finishes in the points. She raced exclusively on the World Cup the last two seasons racing six times in 2023-2024 and eight times last season. Over those two seasons she’s had one top four and four top 60 finishes.
In the last two seasons she has skied fairly well, running a little faster than median each time. Her average course time ranks are in the 30’s and 40’s. Really not bad at all and considering her background about what we might expect. However, also like we might expect from a cross country skiing convert, the shooting is taking a little time to come along. Each of the last two seasons she’s had a hit rate of 62% while hitting in the low 50’s standing.
Margie Freed showed very well at trials and has qualified to once again start the season with Senior level international racing. Fingers crossed this is the year she starts to push forward with the shooting. From there we’ll see what kind of results she can get on either the IBU Cup or the World Cup. If she’s on the IBU Cup I think she’s more than capable of running tin the top 30’s regularly. On the World Cup she can dance around the 40’s and maybe score some points this season.
IBU Cup and Development roster – While many women will be up on the World Cup roster at one point or another, that also means there will be a number of women who could be on the World Cup running on the IBU Cup or even back home in the United States. We’ll discuss all of them here (who weren’t discussed above!). For now here’s who starts on the IBU Cup:
– Kelsey Dickinson
– Grace Castonguay
– Lina Farra
– Joanne Reid*
*This is only because Joanne Reid has to reaccumulate IBU points to get back to the World Cup. As soon as she does she will be back and Lucie Anderson back to IBU Cup
Kelsey Dickinson (32)
Kelsey Dickinson is one of the few American women who actually started her career by racing on the Juniors level. It might have only been one season and just three races but we just don’t see that too often! Since that 2013-2014 debut she’s been spending most of her time on the IBU Cup while getting her feet wet on the World Cup the last three seasons. Her World Cup experienced peaked in the 2022-2023 season with 10 races. In the 2023-2024 season she scored her first World Cup points.
Last season, though, she only ran one World Cup race and raced basically the full season on the IBU Cup with four top 30’s and nine top 40’s. It was easily her most top 40’s in her career on the IBU Cup and by far the best top 40 percentage with nine in just 12 races. Even with the significantly higher floor she didn’t quite find the same ceiling like when she had four top 20’s in the 2021-2022 season.
Dickinson’s higher floor came from significantly improved shooting. For most of her career she’s hit in the mid to high 70’s. Last season she was all the way up to 85.8% total hit rate which was actually 27th best on the IBU Cup last season. Her last few seasons on the World Cup she had been hitting in the mid to low 80’s as well. So this appears a real and lasting improvement in her shooting. Her skiing was also the best of her career on the IBU Cup. She ran 1.6% slower than median, which was slightly better than the 1.8% slower than median in 2021-2022, her last consistent IBU Cup racing.
Kelsey Dickinson looks to be in solid form once again. While her ceiling will still be limited, her shooting has let her consistently score points. She can absolutely get into the top 50 of the IBU Cup overall. On the World Cup, she’ll need to be at her absolute best on the range. Her ski speed just puts her too far back. However there is no reason to believe she couldn’t sneak into the top 40’s in an Individual or maybe a Pursuit if she qualifies.
Grace Castonguay (24)
The young Grace Castonguay came out of the trials as the #8 qualifier and was a coach’s pick to make the Senior in Europe. This means that one way or the other she’ll be back on the IBU or World Cup for the third straight season. For one so young in the American program that’s no small feat! Over the last two seasons she has raced 11 times on the World Cup with two top 60’s both coming last season, and 17 times on the IBU Cup , with three top 40’s and one top 30 all coming last season.
As a young athlete it is not surprising to see consistent year over year growth. That doesn’t mean it’s not exciting though! Castonguay showed nice steady year over year ski speed improvement. On the IBU Cup she moved from 1.2% slower than median to 0.7% faster and her average course time rank improved from 45th to 30th. On the World Cup it doesn’t look as impressive but the improvement is there going from 8.5% slower than median to 6.4% slower. Her shooting is also rising as well. She hit 69.3% on the IBU Cup in the 2023-2024 season and 76.9% on the World Cup last year. I used different performance levels because she raced predominantly IBU Cup on 23-24 and World Cup last season so more respective of her improvement.
Hopefully we just continue to see that trend this season. She obviously earned the top 8 selection to the Senior level out of camp. However, I’m really excited to see them continue to push her forward. She is so young and will hopefully be a big part of the future. She needs to keep racing. Would love to see the shooting get closer to 80% this season. Regardless of that though seeing her skiing improve is the biggest thing. For her to have that big role in the future she needs to get faster. That and sustained higher shooting is what I’m hoping for this year more than anything no matter the results.
Lina Farra (24)
Another young woman working very hard to establish herself US Biathlon’s future is Lina Farra. After some Juniors racing from 2018 through 2020, she made a brief IBU Cup appearance in the 2021-2022 season. However she returned for a full IBU Cup season in 2023-2024. In that season, her extended racing since the 2018-2019 season, she actually looked solid. Surprisingly so, at least to me, for somebody we hadn’t seen in that long. She raced 18 times that season on the IBU Cup and put together eight top 60’s. Again, not spectacular, but considering we just hadn’t been seeing her, I didn’t know what to expect.
She was a good shooter last year hitting 83.2% including 85.5% prone. Absolutely good enough to compete when shooting like that. Of course, then, she was held back by her skiing. She ran 7.3% back of median. That’s just not going to get it done and severely limits her ceiling. So even when she was hitting 100% she wasn’t able to finish higher than 46th.
Farra once again was a very good shooter at the fall trials. For example she hit 19/20 in the Mass Start while finishing 6th. However she was 2 minutes back of Luci Anderson who hit 16/20. Farra is a good shooter. She’s good enough that even with far subpar speed she’s consistently finishing top 60 to qualify for Pursuits. Fingers crossed we’ll see her running a little bit faster this season and that she’ll continue to get faster. She’ll go as far as she skiing can carry her.
Tara Geraghty-Moats (32)
One of the most fascinating women in biathlon, on any team, is Tara Geraghty-Moats. A former World Cup Ski Jumper, and even more impressively, former World Cup Overall Champion in the Nordic Combined. Geraghty-Moats hasn’t quite had that level of success in biathlon but she keeps fighting on. That doesn’t stop her from still enjoying her other passions. This summer she competed in a couple of Ski Jumping competitions and finished in 4th! Against full time ski jumpers! Interestingly, after Fall trials she did to Lake Placed for some more fun. She won two gold medals at Nordic Combined summer nationals and then at ski jumping nationals was 4th and 7th. Maybe she makes a run at Olympics in ski jumping? She indicated it’s possible but she’s still focused on biathlon right now.
After returning to biathlon she ran about a half season on the IBU Cup in her first season back in 2021-2022 and picked up a couple of top 40’s. She made her World Cup debut in the 2022-23 season and set a best of 66th. She also raced on the IBU Cup that season and picked up a career best 28th in the European Championship Sprint. In 23-24 she once again split time while racing nine times. Last season, though, after racing just five times with four IBU Cup starts and one World Cup start, her season ended in January.
So far in her career Geraghty-Moats as struggled to get her shooting and skiing working together. At times when she’s hit a little better her skiing has been slower. When she’s been skiing faster her skiing slipped into the 60’s.
Tara Geraghty-Moats is such an easy person to root for. We got to interview her a couple of seasons ago. She spoke at length about how grateful she was for the opportunities she’s had. She keeps putting new challenges in front of her and trying to conquer him. For her it’s not always about sucess and it’s certainly not about the glory or taking the easy road. For Tara Geraghty-Moats its about the love of the challege and the competition. She won’t start the season on the Senior level after finishing 10th at team trials. No matter what avenue she choose this season, continuing to fight for the biathlon success, or trying to make the Olympic team in ski jumping, I’ll be rooting for her!
Jackie Garso (26)
The US Biathlon team has a very meritocratic system of choosing who will race on the Senior level. With such a distance between the United States and most IBU Cup/World Cup events it’s hard to just pull somebody up mid trimester so they do preseason trials and December trials with well established calculations for who will make the cut offs. I mention this because without those markers it would have been easy to assume Jackie Garso would be racing in the first trimester for US Biathlon. She raced 13 times on the IBU Cup in 2022-2023 and 17 times last season. In between she ran nine World Cup races. Long story short she’s raced every trimester on the Senior level for last three seasons until now so she’s been a staple of the program in this Olympic cycle.
Over those three seasons we’ve seen her shooting percentage climb steadily. She’s moved up from hitting in the mid 60’s now to hitting 83.2% last season, her best full season on any level. Her skiing though, has been stuck a little bit with her IBU course time rank being 49th in the 22-23 season and 55th last year.
Jackie Garso will absolutely be at the December trials and will make a push to find the IBU Cup again at least. Her shooting has come along very nicely and is more than good enough to compete now. It’s all about seeing her skiing come along. Over the last few seasons Freed, Castonguay, and Dickinson have surpassed Garso’s performance level. That’s a good thing. A rising tide lifts all boats. Now it’s time for Garso to see her boat rise as well!
Cheresa Bouley (25)
Cheresa Bouley is another of the young American women who joined the national team at an early enough point to compete on the Juniors level. She actually ran a full season in the 2021-2022 season, something we just rarely see. After not making the Senior roster in 2022-2023, she’s raced on the IBU Cup for all of 23-204 and the 2nd and third trimesters of last season. In those two seasons she’s collected top 50’s and 60’s pretty regularly finishing in that range 10 times. Last season she also earned her first top 40 finishing 39th at the Brezno-Orsblie Sprint.
Bouley did see improvement in both skiing and shooting last year. The skiing was only a mild improvement but it was improvement! She improved from 4.2% slower than median to 3.5% slower than median with her average course time rank improving by four spots. Her shooting percentage, on the other hand, rose very nicely from 72.9% to 79.5%. That’s excellent year over year improvement.
Cheresa Bouley absolutely has a future competing on the Senior level for US Biathlon. She’s already made significant improvements in her shooting. Let’s see that continue! She can build herself a nice floor with shooting in the mid 80’s and it looks like she’s improving enough that I could see her getting there in the next few seasons. Like so many of these women though, the ceiling of her performance is going to be carried by her skiing. She’ll need to see that continue to come along to earn her spots back on the Senior levels.
Juniors – And finally a few young women who will be competing primarily in the Juniors levels
Virgina Cobb (20)
-2024-2025 was third season of racing. Raced only Junior Worlds
– Junior Worlds: 61st, 84th, 62nd
– Priror career best of 16th at the 2023 Youth Worlds
– Course Time Ranks: 41, 48, and 43. Slightly better than 23-24.
– Shooting percentage: 50%, 50%, and 60%
Reine Soule (16)
-2024-2025 was debut season. Raced at Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 65thn and 75th
– Course Time Ranks: 56 and 56
– Shooting percentage: 65% and 60%
Seven Bowen (18)
-2024-2025 was debut season of racing. Raced three Junior Cup races and Junior European Championships
– Junior European Championships: 59th, 83rd, and 55th
– Best moment: 38th in the Jakuszyce Sprint
– Average Course Time Rank: 50th
– Shooting percentage: 53.3% with roughly even splits
Annelise Baird (17)
-2024-2025 was debut season of racing. Raced three Junior Cup races and Junior European Championships
– Junior European Championships: 61st and 70th
– Best moment: 45th in the Jakuszyce Sprint
– Average Course Time Rank: 57th
– Shooting percentage: 55.7% hitting 51.4% prone and 60% standing
Mirra Payson (20)
-2024-2025 was second season of racing. Raced Youth Worlds each of the last two seasons
– Youth World Championships: 67th and 70%h
– Career Best: 58th in 2024 Youth Worlds Sprint
– Course Time Ranks: 65th and 69th
– Shooting Percentages: 85% and 90%